The applicant has developed a method and an apparatus for rapid homogenisation and mixing of reaction mixtures with regard to temperature and chemical concentration, i.e. to subject the reaction mixtures to asymmetric heating and cooling while the reaction mixtures are centrifuged.
When using said apparatus, reaction vessels including the reaction mixtures, i.e. the complete reaction mixture or a subset of this, are placed in a rotor of a centrifuge with the closed end directed downwards, outwards or otherwise according to standard practice for centrifuging the reaction vessels in question. The centrifuge is then started, i.e. the engine which brings the rotor to spin is switched on.
When the rotor has accelerated to the chosen gravitational force, the rotation is kept at constant speed. A heating source is now switched on leading to an increased temperature in the reaction mixtures in an asymmetric manner so that a temperature difference is created in the reaction mixtures. Preferably, the heating acts directly on a portion of the reaction mixtures contained in the reaction vessels. At the same time the reaction mixtures are subjected to cooling by means of cooling the walls of the reaction vessels.
This asymmetric heating and cooling during centrifugation creates a rapid, controlled flow in the reaction vessels that thoroughly mixes the reaction mixtures with respect to both temperature and chemical concentration. This extremely rapid mixing is tentatively called superconvection.